It is 4:16 am on Wednesday, January 21, 2009, and I am still trying to digest my inaugural experience. I shake my head and look skyward, filled with a thankful spirit for being alive during this moment to see the first African-American President of the United States take the oath of office. Like the other two million or so persons (which I think there were more) that gathered to witness the swearing in of our 44th President, Barack H. Obama, I too battled the frigid temperatures to be a part of this great historical moment.
Aside from the numb feeling that the cold gave your limbs and extremities, it seemed as though there was an energy in the air that was not easily describable that also chilled and stirred the soul. My attempt to speak to the feeling is that maybe, just maybe I, as well as the rest of my fellow Americans, was filled with a holistic sense of HOPE. This feeling was not like the feeling I had when I heard Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004 or when I was blessed to meet him (and speak with him) on a flight to St. Louis in 2005, nor was it the feeling I had when I donated to the campaign for the first time. Neither was the feeling today the same as I had when I spoke to my ninety-seven year old grandmother when Obama won the election.
As I stood with my uncle and cheered after President-Elect Obama became President Barack Hussein Obama, I then knew what the "substance of things hoped for" and "the evidence of things not seen" was. As President Obama gave his magnificent and succinct oration I was doubly proud to hear that Rev. Joseph Lowery was giving the benediction. In his usual oratorical flare he did not disappoint and important for me was his use of James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing"/"Negro National Anthem".
Of the many times that I have sang, listened to, or read the lyrics to this song, hearing the last stanza of the third verse, "true to our God, true to our native land" never felt more inspiring. I typically engage the words and think of my native land as ancestral Africa. Today I felt a second "native land"--America. The imperfect, tragic, oppressive, and devastating aspects of the history of United States aside, I pause to give thanks to the Creator for allowing me to see and experience this transformative moment first hand. For on this day the spirits of those ancestors who helped us to get to this moment through their sacrifice are uplifted and exalted. Theirs was not a toil made in vain.
I shall never forget this day nor the words of my uncle, Rev. Dr. Milton Mitchell, Sr., who in his own transformative moment yelled, "God Be Praised!" after President Barack Obama took the sacred oath. As the new President of the United States filed out of view from the crowd and the those gathered in the mall cheered, there was nothing like seeing the dancing folk all around me. Each of us who witnessed the inauguration seemed to be filled with joy, however it was particularly moving to see the faces and emotion of other black folk I saw who danced with delight and gleeful merriment. As I joined in the reveling, I thought about what our ancestors must have felt like after emancipation singing, "Jubilee".
We have celebrated, we have cheered, we have cried, shouted, and given thanks for the hope that President Obama represents. Now, with the continued help of God let us do the work of kingdom and nation building.
6 comments:
I still feel like I can burst out of my skin, cry, clap, roll on the floor and it still wouldn't fully demonstrate what I feel. My neice, 8yrs old, called me to make sure I was tuned in. She said this says we can do anything. My father, still in his hospital bed, cried and then told me once again I should walk more because he see's a lil belly on me (another topic). Go Dad!!
I am ...happy!
Man V you have seemed to verbally express the feeling that I think so many americans had yesterday. I saw no matter how people felt or voted there seem to be a short calm and for a brief moment it became a reality that race can be transcended and we can be the great nation that the US has claimed it is. I just hate I did not take my family to be there in person.
Lathon F.
That's interesting take on Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing.
Growing up in the particular church that I did, we were asked to stand when it came to the third verse because our pastor always viewed it as a prayer. And then being in seminary I've been around plenty of church services where the third verse has been customary as the opening to an altar call prayer. So, it was of no shock that Lowery did what he did. In fact, it was a warming feeling to hear him do it.
It was hard for me to get all the way into the moment because where I was standing people had started leaving, but I was there when I heard him quote the verse. And for me, I ALWAYS viewed the "native land" as that of America. I never got the impression that Johnson was some pre-Pan-Africanist that was hearkening back to pre-slavery days of being on the African continent. I always viewed the entire poem as written in the tradition of Langston Hughes, "I too, sing America."
Fact of the matter is that blacks are in fact African AMERICAN and all Johnson was doing was laying claim to that fact. The problem was that up until this past week most of us echoed Michelle Obama's sentiment that we never had much we could point to in this country that even remotely made us want to identify ourselves with the United States; we had nothing to be proud of. Prior to Obama's election, the ending of slavery and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act all ultimately relied on the benevolence of whites "allowing" us to gain certain freedoms. The election of a black man finally allowed blacks and whites to vote under their own volition--not as a result of marches and protests and political manuevering--and make a step forward in human existence.
As the second verse says that it has been a stony road that we've trod, a bitter chastening rod that was "felt in the days when hope unborn had died" and now we've progressed to a point where we "chose hope in the face of fear."
While you find my take on "true to our native land" indeed interesting I find it just as intriguing that you don't see "native land" as hearkening back to ancestral Africa. I actually don't see how you could not to be honest.
Why would one be "true" to native America? African Americans have consistently been the defenders of the republicanism that this country was founded upon. We, collectively have always been "true" from Crispus Attucks to Medgar Evers. However, it has not reciprocated that same "trueness" until the election of President Obama. That is not to say that the bounced check that King tried to cash in 1963 has been paid, but it is a move toward justice.
In my view, Johnson was indeed, as many Harlem or Negro Renaissance writers were, Pan-Africanist. That is not to say that they were militant black nationalists either. The period in which the song was written, as you know, was filled with a placement of African ancestry into what we now call the diasporic struggles of African peoples across the globe. For African Americans, the invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) during World World II strengthened such feelings.
However,from my understanding there was a duality that existed with the new notions of blackness during the Renaissance--our African origin and simultaneously celebrated our current nationalistic residence. Alain Locke's "The New Negro" embodies this point wholeheartedly.
This conversation makes me think that more attention should be given to this topic in a most academic context and I appreciate your point of view. As always thanks for posting good brother.
VCM
Great post, Vernon.
This is definitely a time of Jubilee...but we must be cautious. Elation has been the downfall of many. And, this is our time to ACT and ensure that the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution take on new meaning in our Community.
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